Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers

How far removed from reality is Don McGowan to brag about using his position to threaten a random child and their family? Lawyers are wild man.

As a child who has been bullied by adults for legal behavior this hit home with me. Glad there are more people coming forward.

> When it’s somebody complaining about workplace issues, I don’t really necessarily want to know who it is, > unless what they’re complaining about is, ‘My boss is sexually harassing me.’ Then I want to know who it is > because I want to know who their boss is. I’m investigating, not to try to out the person, but to try t > assess the truth of what they’re saying.

> I might have a talk with David. I might say, ‘Listen, I’ve figured out it was you. Do I not seem approachable? > Why are you and I not having a conversation about this?’ Obviously, my job is to protect the organization, but > ‘protect the organization’ takes on different meanings to different people. To me, ‘protect the organization’ > has always meant: protect your people from bad things.

Good grief - do not fall for this shit.

The reason someone like him tries to figure out the identity of a person claiming sexual harassment is estimating and minimizing the liability. How credible are you (to the public, press, investigators, a potential jury), how big a platform do you have, etc. An unlikable, not-stereotypically-attractive loner who has no little social media connections? Not a threat. A person who has a thousand followers, is likable/attractive, etc? Big threat.

The only reason they care about the identity of the harasser is to figure out how big a deal this might be. Manager of some QA testing group? Not a problem. C-suite or Vice President, etc? Big problem, that both legal and PR will be quickly roped in on.

Just like with HR, nobody that works for your employer ever has your best interests even remotely on their priority list beyond getting you to trust them so they can pump you for as much information as possible to sabotage your claims by doing things like creating alibis, destroying evidence, and searching out reasons to accuse you of being a poorly performing / combative employee who is simply a malcontent.

If you've been or are being sexually harassed, your first stop should be an attorney (and in case it's obvious, not one you find via your company's EAP.)

The whole "oh I have totally pure motives for wanting to identify someone saying they're being sexually harassed" angle was a little more concerning. It's wild so many comments thusfar are about that and not about the blatant bullshit around why he hunts down sexual harassment victims.

> $300+/hr thugs for hire whose only mission is to bully you into complete submission until you pay to make them go away.

Sounds like a great success that many would kill for.

/Sarcasm, but still. Meh.